Orthopedic surgeons and other healthcare professionals commonly rely on surgical guidance techniques that can be broadly classified in two categories: pre-operative digital templating or training systems that enable pre-surgical planning, and computer-assisted navigation systems providing intra-operative guidance for placement and movement of surgical instruments within a patient. There are benefits to both of these technologies, but each has respective limitations.
Preoperative digital templating techniques enable preoperative surgical planning by utilizing digital or hard copy radiographic images or similar X-ray-type, scaled according to an object of known size. Commonly, a spherical ball marker of known size is placed between the legs or next to the hip of a patient undergoing hip surgery so that it appears in the image; the ball marker is then utilized as a reference feature for image scaling. This preoperative scaling technique has inherent limitations to accuracy because it assumes that the bones within a patient and the surface ball marker will magnify at the same ratio. Commonly, the surgeon will realize during the surgery that this scale factor is inaccurate, due to deviations in magnification ratios, rendering the preoperative template ineffective for intraoperative decision making. For emergency cases such as hip fractures, preoperative digital templating often cannot be utilized, because the X-ray images are taken in a hospital setting without utilizing a ball marker or other scaling device.
Surgeons also have the option of utilizing computer-assisted navigation systems which provide intraoperative guidance. The purported benefits of computer navigation include reduction of outliers and adverse outcomes related to intraoperative positioning of surgical hardware. For example, computer navigation is utilized in hip replacement surgery to add precision to implant positioning by providing data on functional parameters such as leg length and offset changes during surgery.
Despite obvious clinical benefit, these systems have had limited adoption due to their expense, the learning curve and training requirements for surgeons and, for some systems, the additional procedure and time associated with hardware insertion into the patient. These adoption barriers have limited the use of computer assisted navigation to an extremely small percentage of overall hip arthroplasty surgeries. The surgeons that do not use these systems are limited to traditional techniques that are generally based on visual analysis and surgeon experience. However, these techniques are inconsistent, often leading to outliers in functional parameters which may affect patient satisfaction and implant longevity.
Details of one such technique, specifically used in a minimally invasive hip arthroplasty technique referred to as the direct anterior approach, are mentioned in the description of a total hip arthroplasty surgery, by Matta et al. in “Single-incision Anterior Approach for Total hip Arthroplasty on an Orthopedic Table”, Clinical Ortho. And Related Res. 441, pp. 115-124 (2005). The intra-operative technique described by Matta et al. is time-consuming and has a high risk of inaccuracy due to differences in rotation, magnification and/or scaling of various images. The high risk of inaccurate interpretation using this technique has limited its utility in guiding surgical decision making.
What appears to be a software implementation of this technique is described by Penenberg et al. in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2014/0378828, which is a continuation-in-part application of U.S. Pat. No. 8,831,324 by Penenberg. While the use of a computer system may facilitate some aspects of this technique, the underlying challenges to the technique are consistent with the challenges to Matta's approach, and limit the system's potential utility.
There are various other examples of where intra-operative guidance systems could improve quality of patient care in orthopedics through the reduction of outliers. One such example is in the treatment of peritrochanteric hip fractures. The selection of the proper implant and associated neck-shaft angle is often incompletely evaluated by the surgeon and implant representative utilizing conventional techniques. Furthermore, variations in placement of screws and other fixation devices and implants can significantly alter patient outcomes in treatment of these fractures. These variations and resulting outcomes are analyzed by Baumgaertner et al. in “The Value of the Tip-Apex Distance in Predicting Failure of Fixation of Peritrochanteric Fractures of the Hip”, J. Bone Joint Surg. 77-A No. 7, pp. 1058-1064 (1995). Other techniques relating to femoral fractures, including measurement of tip apex distance and screw position, are discussed by Bruijin et al. in “Reliability of Predictors for Screw Cutout in Intertrochanteric Hip Fractures”, J. Bone Joint Surg. Am. 94, pp. 1266-72 (2012).
Proper reduction of fractures, that is, proper alignment of bones during surgery, often leads to more consistent patient outcomes, and intraoperative analysis of such reductions is incompletely evaluated currently because of the lack of non-invasive technologies that enable intraoperative analysis. One example is in the treatment of distal radius fractures. As referenced by Mann et al, “Radiographic evaluation of the wrist: what does the hand surgeon want to know?” Radiology, 184(1), pp 15-24 (1992), accurate restoration of certain parameters, such as radial inclination, radial length and Palmar Slope or Tilt, during the treatment of distal radius fractures is important. Currently, intraoperative images are utilized by surgeons, but there is no ability to readily analyse these parameters and form comparative analysis to normal anatomy.
Given the inherent scaling limitations of preoperative surgical planning and adoption barriers of current intraoperative computer navigation systems, an opportunity exists for a system and method that provides accurate intraoperative guidance and data, but without the barriers to adoption and invasive hardware requirements of traditional computer-assisted navigation.
It is therefore desirable to have a system and method to effectively analyze images intra-operatively using comparative anatomical features, to enhance patient quality of care by providing accurate intra-operative guidance and data.